Lance Armstrong offers to help 'clean up cycling'

The disgraced cyclist Lance Armstrong has been given a dealine of February 6 to testify to the USADA as to the full extent of his doping.

Amstrong's lawyer has said that the banned rider will work with US doping authorities and cycling officials to help 'clean up cycling', adding that the brunt of that work should fall to anti doping officials and the sport's governing bodies.

Earlier this week the lawyer was sent a letter by the USADA's attorney William Bock, setting a February 6 deadline for a testimony under oath.

Tim Herman, acting for Armstrong, has said that this will be possible.

"As you have candidly confirmed, USADA has no authority to investigate, prosecute or otherwise involve itself with the other 95% of cycling competitors," he wrote, according to Sky News.

"Thus, in order to achieve the goal of 'cleaning up cycling,' it must be WADA and the UCI who have overall authority to do so."

The testimony is expected to clarify what Armstrong told Oprah Winfrey in a televised interview; namely that he took the performance enhancing drugs EPO and testosterone and made use of blood transfusions in each of his seven Tour de France 'wins'.

Some have speculated that full cooperation with the USADA could reduce Armstrong's ban from lifetime to around eight years.

But there is still uncertainty as to the veracity of his testimony. USADA's CEO Travis Tygart said in an interview for CBS, scheduled to be screened tomorrow, that he was unsure that Armstrong's claims of a clean comeback in 2009 held water.

"His blood tests in 2009, 2010 ... one to a million chance that it was due to something other than doping," Tygart said.

After an unpromising start, having to be bribed by her parents to learn to ride without stabilisers, Sarah became rather keener on cycling in her university years, and was eventually persuaded to upgrade to proper road cycling by the prospect of a shiny red Italian bike, which she promptly destroyed by trapping a pair of knickers in the rear derailleur. Sarah writes about about cycling every weekend on road.cc.

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andyp[1473 posts]3 years ago

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A week after his lying on national TV, why do I find this somewhat hard to believe?

Armstrong trying to bully and control the agenda again? If he was genuinely interested in contrition, why didn't he just admit all at the original hearing that he declined to attend? Perhaps he thought his buddies in the UCI would come to the rescue but they're too busy plugging the leaks in a sinking ship.

The actions of a cornered rat looking for a way out to save himself. He cares nothing for cycling.

Maybe, maybe not.
If he actually co-operates and tells the truth, he could probably blow the whole ship out of the water. The UCI, the doctors, team managers, the insider knowledge about dope test evasion, the whole lot.

This isn't really much different from Landis who tried more or less the same trick - lie, disavow, smear then eventually come clean.

Armstrong "clean up cycling", isn't that putting the fox in charge of the hen house?

Anyone on here read the latest issue of that new magazine "Cyclist"? There's an article in there about bike theft, how to prevent it, what locks to use etc written in conjunction with a former bike thief (now a reformed character thanks to one of those "helping people off the streets" initiatives). Best person to say about bike theft is someone who used to nick them. Here's how I did it, here's how I broke these locks, worked out where the best pickings were...

Same in this case. That's why David Millar is so good. If LA can give full details of where he got the drugs, what he used, how they were transported & delivered, how they avoided the tests etc then it can only help in the fight against doping.

Yes, there's an element of cynicism in it, of course he's trying to save his own skin (wouldn't you?) but IF he does this, IF it can persuade others to do the same, it might just have a lasting and positive impact on the sport.

LA feck off (sorry guys about the language) but seriously who cares, you have damaged this sport beyond belief. Go away please P McQ and HV follow him into the abyss of we don't care. Lets see a new head of the UCI a David Millar figure to take them forward with a belief and suffering for that is pro cycling.

Id like LA to come clean but at the same time,Im with the guy above. According to Millar, cycling is 99% clean now, the sport is moving onwards and kids coming in are able to compete fairly. This LA case, will certainly underwrite the MO for dealing dope in sport/cycling but might not necessarily aide today's cycling (the lessons have been learnt and the Bio Passport appears able to catch most doping today. This is just simply self serving LA and thats that. let the man maintain his smug looks and half hearted answers and let him never compete again.

Two points. Millar has no way of knowing how clean cycling is nowadays, and Michael Ashenden himself says that the biological passport is not a panacea, and can be circumvented. When Pat McQuaid says something like "it couldn't happen now because of the biological passport", look at his track record and DON'T BELIEVE HIM.
Nobody could give more help to anti-doping organisations than Lance Armstrong. How much of the truth he is willing to tell, and what he would want in return, remains to be seen.

Probability of 1 in 1000000 that a specific case of X (lance winning the tour, lance's blood results, a new hour record, whatever) happening by chance (ie clean),
IS NOT THE SAME AS
Probability of 999999 in 1000000 that the case of X occurred not by chance (ie doping).

I keep seeing this creeping into the reporting- even if the reports don't explicitly state the second half, they leave it to statistically ignorant people to draw the (wrong) conclusion.

Probability of 1 in 1000000 that a specific case of X (lance winning the tour, lance's blood results, a new hour record, whatever) happening by chance (ie clean),
IS NOT THE SAME AS
Probability of 999999 in 1000000 that the case of X occurred not by chance (ie doping.